[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> a musical tribute digest [cramer vs recktenwald x2]

[Karl-Erik Tallmo <tallmo@nisus.se>]

>
>Quoted from http://www.mp3.com/news/095.html :
>
>>    Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
>>
>>    As you may know, both the Fraunhofer Institute and THOMSON have done
>>    important work to develop MPEG Layer-3 audio compression (before and
>>    after it became part of the MPEG standards). This work has resulted
>>    in many inventions and several patents, covering the MPEG Layer-3
>>    standard.
>>
>>    From your publications and your web-site we learn that you
>>    distribute and/or sell decoders and/or encoders that use the MPEG
>>    Layer-3 standard.
>>
>>    Our files do not show that you have a valid license agreement with
>>    us. This means that the products infringe the patent rights of
>  >   Fraunhofer and THOMSON.



>snip



>  >
>>    We look forward to hearing from you soon.
>>
>>    Best regards,
>>    - Martin
>>  
>>    ---
>>    Martin Sieler
>>    Fraunhofer IIS-A, Audio & Multimedia
>>    email: sir@iis.fhg.de
>>    phone: +49 9131 776-610
>>    fax: +49 9131 776-699
>>    www: http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/
>  >--


All this sounds as an echo from '94, when Unisys and Compuserve tried 
to charge developers and end-users (or rather end-distributors) of 
gif files for the use of their patent of the compression algorithm 
LZW which they had developed. Back then, creative netizens developed 
an alternative algorithm within a couple of hours, that was supposed 
to be very easy to convert all the gif files into - if necessary. I 
think it was called GEF. Unisys/Compuserve backed off then - at least 
from some of their demands. Maybe this will happen here too...


Karl-Erik Tallmo


-- 

  _________________________________________________________________

    KARL-ERIK TALLMO, Swedish writer, lecturer

    MAGAZINE: http://art-bin.com
  _________________________________________________________________



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